Now don’t get me wrong, the basic cuts of my movies are still posted on that site and will remain there. The great thing about companies like this is although you sign a filmmaker agreement contract, it is not an exclusive distribution deal. You are free to pursue any other deals out there.
And thank goodness, because I finally got to discover CustomFlix**. Set up kind of like IndieFlix and kind of like CafePress, CustomFlix works on a similar model. You send in your master, you upload your jacket art and disc face art to their site, and you set the pricing.
Once processed, the films become available – in packaging as nice as you’re able to create – and will be posted for sale at the price you set on Amazon.com as well as CustomFlix’s site. You can also make it available as an Amazon download for iPods and PC users (Broadband, the way of the future!).
Now your take of profit isn’t going to be huge, but you can make some cash. It all depends on if there is a market for your film outside of your friends, family, and the indie film community. If there is, you’ll make some money. And, there are success stories of people selling on CustomFlix and making numbers so high that other distributors noticed, and eventually acquired the films.
I’m preparing “Special Editions” of all three of my feature films to be posted on CustomFlix, and can’t wait to see them available on Amazon. These are films that have tried their hand at the market, have played at festivals, have won awards, but then faded away like most Indies do. Thanks to this kind of company, they will finally be available for the global market. (If you would like to read my interview with Dana LoPiccolo-Giles, the co-founder of CustomFlix, click here.)
Filmmakers always will and should dream big, and believe me, if you can secure a nice distribution deal for your indie film my hat’s off to you. But most of us won’t. And with the advent and subsequent flooding of digital product on the market, options like this get films out there for the audiences, no matter how glamour-less these solutions might seem to a filmmaker with Park City Lights in his eyes.
But Standing With Fishes, that standout film from IFFM 2000, despite its budget and star power, tumbled aimlessly for years before securing a deal with a company called Mti Distribution. This is a small company, that did a small run, and I’d bet didn’t pay much of an advance. The film sells for $9.95 on Amazon, the same price a feature sells for on IndieFlix, and I guarantee these filmmakers aren’t getting $4 per sale.
Long having abandoned the true independents, the Sundance Film Festival was the world premiere venue for The Butterfly Effect and Pulp Fiction. The films being purchased at this year’s festival include an “Independent Film” starring John Cusack. One of the films hoping to secure a buyer was the Directorial debut of Sir Anthony Hopkins. True independents, with no budgets or star power, cannot compete in this marketplace.
“Ah,” said one of the filmmakers I met at a festival here in Los Angeles. “Open Water.”
I laughed. “Yes, Open Water was shot digitally, was a micro-budget film, and found a buyer. It is also a film where the filmmakers, whose previous films had never sold, dropped two actors into the water with live sharks and filmed it. If that’s what it takes to score distribution, what chance does the $50,000 character drama have?”
“They shouldn’t let you talk on these panels”, this filmmaker said back.
And to date, his film hasn’t sold either.
**[Editor's Note: CustomFlix has been purchased by Amazon.com and is now known as CreateSpace. In addition to films, they now include book and CD printing, which can be a great way to create collector's editions of films. -JH]
